… In an article about Jewish history that I wrote in January for El-Sharq El-Awsat newspaper, I wrote, “It seems that the idea of killing children, old people, and women and ignoring taboos runs in the blood of the Palestinian Jews,” a statement that has been interpreted as anti-Semitic. There are two important points that I want to stress in addressing this criticism. First, I was not speaking of Jews in general. I was speaking only of the “Jews of Palestine” – the modern state of Israel. I deeply disapprove of the policies of the Israeli government with regard to Palestine, and I felt that strong language was necessary to communicate the intensity of my emotions. In addition, I was writing in Arabic for a Middle Eastern audience. The cultural gulf between the West and the Middle East is so deep that I cannot blame people for misinterpreting my statements, but I would like for everyone to know that the tone that I adopted and the words that I chose were tailored to convey my emotions to other Arabic speakers in an idiom that they would appreciate….”

Such demagoguery prompts these questions for Terry Adamson and Chris Johns:

• How does such unadulterated nastiness help build what Chris called a “bridge of understanding“?
• How do you see this local “idiom” shaping the coverage of NGM-Arabic under the guidance of Dr. Hawass?
• Why is Zahi Hawass still on our Society’s payroll?

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About

Hi. I'm Alan Mairson. I'm a freelance journalist based in Bethesda, Maryland; a former staff writer & editor for National Geographic magazine; and a member & lifelong fan of the National Geographic Society. For details about this project, please check out our inaugural post. For more about my advisers & me, see this. To feel the tight financial grip that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exerts on the National Geographic Society, peek at these tax returns. And if you'd like to share ideas, questions, or suggestions — or if you just want to heckle :-) — please contact me here. Thanks for stopping by.